The 2015 Varsity Football challenge is the third season of a South African university

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

competition. It involves some of the top football playing universities in the country, which belong to the University Sports Company. The tournament is run by Varsity Sports SA, and is endorsed by the South African Football Association and University Sport South Africa.

History

The

Varsity Cup Varsity Cup is the collective name for four South African rugby union competitions involving the top rugby playing universities in the country. It was launched in 2008, with eight teams participating in the Varsity Cup competition and each univers ...

tournament was founded in

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

, featuring the rugby teams of eight universities.

Varsity Sports In most English-speaking countries, varsity is an abbreviation of the word ''university''. In the United States and Canada, the term is mostly used in relation to sports teams. Varsity in the United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, varsity team ...

was expanded in 2012 to include other sporting codes. University Sport South Africa discussed the Varsity Football proposal at its 2012 annual general meeting. The idea was initially rejected, as it was seen to split the member institutions. However, it was later accepted, and 2013 was the inaugural season of Varsity Football, with an 8 team men's tournament. A four team women's tournament is also being played.

Participating Teams

The eight teams competing in the men's Varsity Football challenge are:

Qualification

Qualification was based on the 2014 University Sports South Africa National Club Championships. In order to qualify, men's teams need to be one of the eight highest placed teams associated with

. Walter Sisulu University did not finish in the top 8, but was invited as the best finishing member of Varsity Sports. The

University of Zululand The University of Zululand or UniZulu is the only comprehensive tertiary educational institution north of the Tugela River in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Its new status is in accordance with South Africa's National Plan for Higher Education ...

University of KwaZulu-Natal The University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) is a university with five campuses in the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. It was formed on 1 January 2004 after the merger between the University of Natal and the University of Durban-Westville. ...

Cape Peninsula University of Technology Cape Peninsula University of Technology, a university in Cape Town, South Africa, is the only university of technology in the Western Cape province, and is also the largest university in the province, with over 32,000 students. It was formed b ...

Central University of Technology Central University of Technology, Free State or CUT is a University of Technology in Bloemfontein in the Free State province of South Africa. It was established in 1981 as "Technikon A technikon was a post-secondary institute of technology (poly ...

, Berea College and

Durban University of Technology The Durban University of Technology (DUT) is a multi-campus university situated in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It was formed in 2002 following the merger of Technikon Natal and ML Sultan Technikon and it was initially known as the Durban Instit ...

were all overlooked, as they are not members of Varsity Sports.

Standings

Format

The tournament begins with a round robin stage, in which all teams play each other once. After the round robin stage, the top 4 teams will advance to the knock-out stage. The teams ranked 1 and 2 will host the semi-finals, against the teams ranked 4 and 3 respectively. The winners will advance to the final, to be hosted by the highest ranking finalist. All matches are played on Mondays. The league scoring system follows a standard scoring system and awards 3 points are awarded for a win, and 1 point for a draw. Teams are separated first on points, and then on goal difference.

Round robin stage

The 2015 season began with the round robin stages on 20 July, which will end on 3 September. * ''All times are South African (

GMT+2 Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the Local mean time, mean solar time at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, counted from midnight. At different times in the past, it has been calculated in different ways, i ...

)''

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Knockout stage

The top four placed men's teams progressed to the knockout stage, as did all four women's teams. The semi-finals for both men and women were played on 10 September and the finals on 24 September.

References

External links

* http://www.varsitysportssa.com/varsity-football {{Authority control Football Soccer competitions in South Africa